Minnesota Book Award Recipient (in Poetry for “Coming Late to Rachmaninoff”) Richard Terrill on Saxes

Bassist Craig Matarrese

Drummer Chaz Draper

“Larry McDonough’s long-awaited new recording serves up divergent delights, from a reconstructed holiday chestnut to inside-out renditions of jazz standards, from harmonically and rhythmically altered traditional melodies to a trio of original tunes. With a feathery touch that recalls Bill Evans but with more fingers and a unique approach to time that makes the most worn carol or standard a new adventure, Simple Gifts proves to be anything but “simple”—but, for those fortunate enough to hear this music, it is indeed a gift.”

--Andrea Canter, Jazz Police

Larry McDonough is releasing his first studio CD with his working quartet. “Simple Gifts” represents the range of material performed by the Larry McDonough Quartet:

•music based on melodies written by children with disabilities, including Larry daughter Rosie, through the Fingersteps Program, http://www.fingersteps.org., developed by Dan Moffatt (Elie’s Theme)

•other originals (Tuscarora and Lady Day)

•vocals (Simple Gifts, Lady Day, and They Can’t Take That Away from Me),

•reharmonization of pieces of faith (Simple Gifts and Ode to Joy)

•Broadway revisited (My Favorite Things and They Can’t Take That Away from Me)

•smooth (Aja and Elie’s Theme), and

•avant garde (My Favorite Things)

Larry McDonough has performed with legendary saxophonist and composer Benny Golson, Trombonist Fred Wesley, and trumpeter Duane Eubanks, as well as a who’s who of local jazz artists. His last solo piano release, "Tuscarora: Short Stories for Jazz Piano," was dedicated to the memory of Paul and Sheila Wellstone and benefits Wellstone Action. Released locally in 2003, it now is in its national and international release, playing from around the country, and from Australia to the Netherlands. Last spring McDonough premiered four compositions and arrangements for school orchestra and jazz ensembles in Minnesota and around the country.

Sax player Richard Terrill, who received the 2004 Minnesota Book Award for Poetry, for his poetry compilation “Coming Late to Rachmaninoff” (University of Tampa Press, 2003), will read some of his poems within songs played by the group, as he did at the Dakota Holiday Concert last year. The quartet is rounded out by bassist, Mingus stylist and philosophy professor Craig Matarrese, and drummer Chaz Draper (“propulsive percussion that suggested the drum kit had suddenly doubled in size” - Andrea Canter, Jazz Police).